Today
- About me
- Personal Intros
- Syllabus
- Goals and Success
- Grades
- Excel
About me
Personal Intros
Personal Intros
- Name
- Hometown
- Year and Major
- Current show you are binge watching?
- Favorite sports team or musician or hobby?
Syllabus
This is the most important document in any class. It is the agreed upon rules and regulations (contract) that will govern the course. Please read carefully.
Your Goals...
- To learn (understand) finance
- Become financially literate
- Become more proficient/efficient in Excel
- Remember key concepts from this course five-years from now
- Get a good grade (pass)
My Goals
- Motivate and excite you about finance.
- Make sure you leave with a general understanding of finance.
- Help you achieve personal and professional goals (extending beyond this class).
- Make sure you learn (not memorize) the material.
- Play a role in getting you a job.
What is Success?
- How much you learn? Your grade? Switch to finance? Job?
- Success is... meeting our goals.
Keys to Success
- See Syllabus "Tips to Perform Well"
- In general...
- Come to class on time and prepared.
- Participate. If you do not understand stop me and ask.
- Do not wait until the last minute!
- Make your own notes. Writing helps with retention.
- Use resources available to you
- Most importantly...
Why Excel?
"Asking finance professionals if they've given up Excel is like asking whether we've given up drinking"
- The biggest technical skill in business. Everyone uses it.
- Unlikely to change anytime soon: "You'll have to pry Excel out of my cold, dead hands"
- Office 365 has 120 million corporate monthly users globally.
- Microsoft Excel is one of the greatest, most powerful, most important software applications of all time.
Source for quotes WSJ Article
Is Excel going anywhere?
"When it comes to understanding a business and a piece of financial analysis, no type of software can ever replace Excel. This is because going through the painstaking steps of calculating everything about a business yourself really helps you understand it.
Imagine a type of software that automatically takes a company's financial statements, forecast, and capital structure, then automatically spits out an NPV. This would save you a lot of time, but would not teach you anything about the business.
It's the unfortunate truth that building a financial model from the bottom up in Excel is the best way to really understand a business and an investment opportunity."
Source Corporate Finance Institute
Accessing Excel
LMU students can access Excel for free at Microsoft Office 365 with their LMU email address and login.